Olu walks in no particular hurry out of the hospital, puts down his coffee, puts down his phone and starts to cry. Five quick sobs, drumbeats—your-fa-ther-is-dead—then he wipes his face, closes his eyes. Snowflakes fall, land on his nose and his lips. It is one A.M., zero degrees Celsius. “So sorry.” He opens his eyes to find an elderly woman, not five feet tall, fur coat, below him. She has just made her way through the handicapped exit and stopped by his side on the sidewalk outside. In the peculiar silence that invariably accompanies the opening act of a storm in the nighttime, they stand there together and watch the snow swirl through the black then the bright of the hospital sign. She gestures to the lobby through the glass doors behind them, then touches him, winking. She says in a rush, “I know I should have stayed with the kids. Well. The kids. Jesus. Forty years old is our youngest, my youngest. Two boys.
